MN Designs’ modest beginnings started in the early 1990s when former Federal Reserve Bank examiner Marsha Newman learned the banner business from a friend in her native Texas and then opened a wholesale operation after moving to South Carolina.

“People began to ask for cut vinyl, pre-mask, and other materials, so the business just kind of grew from there,” explains Newman, who in the early years did wholesale printing for companies that didn’t have their own printers. Today, the company’s repertoire includes wall-sized logos, backlit signs, vehicle wraps, fl oor graphics, store displays, and more.

Newman, who 25 years ago was a rare female start-up entrepreneur in the signage and graphics world, does it all with just six employees. Given the big impact and presence of their work, visiting clients are always surprised that a shop with so few people can accomplish all that they do. Newman says the key to the staff ’s success is that everyone “wears diff erent hats and puts out a lot of work.”

Newman is a big fan of tradeshows, which is where she was introduced to her fi rst wide-format printer, and her most recent purchase, an EFITM H1625 LED wide-format hybrid inkjet printer. The EFI printer replaced a UV-cure fl atbed printer that, according to Newman, “looked more like a big barbeque grill than a press.”

More substrates, higher-quality results

“The fl atbed was a good machine, but I’d had it for about six years, and it was getting antiquated,” she recalls. “I like going to trade shows, and when I saw the H1625 at the SGIA Expo, I just knew that it was going to be the machine for us.”

EFI H1625 LED printer delivers “amazing” results at MN Designs

EFI H1625 LEDCase Study

Challenge:

Upgrading from older UV fl atbed

technology for an expanded range of

media and applications.

803-996-6633 | www.mnink.com

THE BLANK& DIGITAL

SIGN SUPPLIER

2

Konica Minolta® Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc., an authorized EFI channel partner, showcased the printer at the SGIA event, and Newman readily saw the value. She has absolutely no regrets about the decision to upgrade to the EFI printer, a 65-inch wide hybrid flatbed/roll device that can print on a wide range of materials thanks to its cool cure LED technology. Of all of the superlatives that Newman uses to describe how well the printer has served her company, “amazing” is her favorite.

“It is amazing what effects you can get on different mediums and substrates,” she says. “Now that we’re so blessed, I put in a Colex digital flatbed cutter, so whatever we print on the EFI machine we can cut in a shape.”

The printer can print materials up to 2 inches thick — “If it’s flat, MN Designs can print it,” is Newman’s new motto, she says. There are almost no limits to her business opportunities now, and she can pursue things that were just not possible before. When a large sign company, for example, needed someone to print images of athletes in action on glass panels for a local university’s huge new fitness center, MN Designs was the perfect subcontractor for the job.

“That was a huge, huge job, and it brought in a lot of revenue for us,” says Newman, who printed direct to glass with phenomenal results. “It’s a project I could not have done without a machine like this. I could not have printed it on vinyl and mounted it to the glass; it would not have worked. It’s just amazing the print quality you can get from the EFI press.”

Another job MN Designs completed recently that it could not have done before is a project that involved printing vintage maps on wood. Lots of people print on wood, Newman notes, but on the prints of Charleston Harbor she created for that project, the wood grain actually looks like water.

One of the aspects of the printer that Newman appreciates is the ability to transform ordinary materials — even cheap corrugated plastic board — into high-quality signs. Newman printed two corrugated plastic boards with tropical scenes and put them on display in the shop; visitors always comment on them because of the beautiful vibrancy of the blues and greens.

Twenty-five years ago, Marsha Newman found herself in a predicament familiar to many women of her generation: having to pack up and move the family from Texas to South Carolina to accommodate a business opportunity her husband could not refuse. That’s when Newman, who was the first woman in her native Texas to be appointed a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas bank examiner, decided that while her husband was at work and her children were in school, she would create her own business opportunity.

The University of Texas graduate who majored in business but always had a creative bent reached out to a friend who owned a banner company in the Lone Star state and asked her to “tell me how it’s done.”

The rest is history. MN Designs, Inc., which began in a small 600-square-foot office that was largely taken up by a cutting table strewn with banner material, now operates in a space that exceeds 10,000 square feet and specializes in wholesale signage supplies and digital printing of signage and banners.

MN Designs

1925 Airport Blvd

Cayce, SC 29033

803-996-6633

www.mnink.com

marshan@mndesignsinc.com

803-996-6633 | www.mnink.com

THE BLANK& DIGITAL

SIGN SUPPLIER

Solution:

“ It’s so fun, and it opens people’s minds to thinking,

‘Well, what can we not print?”

MARSHA NEWMAN, OWNER MN DESIGNS

3

If a good printer can make that substrate look good, she tells them, imagine what can be done with quality materials.

Compared with MN Designs’ previous UV-cure flatbed printer, the LED curing on the EFI printer has proven to be more reliable and trouble-free. Curing lamps on the previous machine “were always going out, which was very expensive,” Newman says. Unlike with UV inkjet graphics printing, the instant-on/instant-off LED lamps on the H1625 model do not run throughout the printing process, which extends their life significantly. MN Designs has yet to replace a lamp on its LED printer, and the feature has been a big cost saver. Not only are there fewer lamps to purchase, LED curing requires less energy than MN Designs’ previous UV printer, and Newman estimates that she spends a few hundred dollars less each month on her electricity bill.

Counting on Konica Minolta

Newman was one of the first to purchase the H1625 LED printer through EFI’s distribution partnership with Konica Minolta. It has been a very positive experience, she says, with Konica Minolta providing the same level of high-quality training that customers who buy directly from EFI expect. Konica Minolta also has a good, local presence, and even participates in open houses that MN Designs hosts each year.

At last year’s open house, the EFI printer was the star of the show. Newman printed Frisbees and trade show tables, corn hole games and bags with people’s faces on them, and all kinds of out-of-the-ordinary tchotchkes.

Result:

“ That was a huge, huge job,

and it brought in a lot of

revenue for us. It’s a project

I could not have done

without a machine like this.”

MARSHA NEWMAN, OWNER MN DESIGNS

Superior-quality LED imaging complements natural grain patterns in a series of vintage local maps MN Designs printed directly on wood.

“People were amazed,” she says. “We even printed a saw blade and keys. It’s so fun, and it opens people’s minds to thinking, ‘Well, what can we not print?’”

MN Designs uses EFI H1625 LED 3MTM ink on its printer, which has turned out to be a major advantage. Just recently, the company printed a job on cardboard then put it on a router to make a box. “I had been told that the 3M ink doesn’t stretch or crack, it just bends — and it did,” which both surprised and impressed Newman.

The EFI Fiery® XF Digital Front End MN Designs uses with its printer gives the company’s staff the ability to output products of the highest quality at a lower cost. The company saves time with increased automation on a system that ensures high-quality, accurate color.

The customer is always happy

As thrilled as she is with her EFI equipment, customer satisfaction is paramount for Newman. She still serves many of the customers she had when MN Designs first opened, including the owner of a local family’s sign shop, who grew up coming to MN Designs with his grandfather to pick up jobs.

“There’s a lot of competition out there, and you have to stay ahead of it,” Newman says. “My customers know that if they find a better price somewhere I will always meet it or beat it. I also provide really good turnaround and quality. We put a lot of effort into keeping them happy and satisfied.”

At the end of the day, she adds, she wants to know that the company she founded is making a difference. So, while the EFI printer has enabled her to pursue opportunities that are lucrative and meet some incredibly creative challenges, it’s the differences in people’s lives that mean the most to her.

“I have a customer whose mother had Alzheimer’s, and at the very end of her life my customer asked the mother to write a message. She wrote ‘I love you’ and my customer’s name on a piece of paper,” Newman recalls tearfully. The customer brought a photo of her mother and the note to Newman and asked her to combine them in a print – and Newman did it on the H1625 LED printer.

“The possibilities are endless — they only depend on how far people want to take what they can produce with this machine,” Newman says. “We touch people in that way, and that’s really, really important.”

GVP.022.03.18_US

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